Askew uses his camera to capture bare human presence, taking his film subjects beyond the mind – into their inner, wiser, more intuitive and intelligent world. Through a nearly two-decade journey in explorative film, he has discovered a profoundly simple way to be together with someone and capture them – which is not an interview, but an Inner View. “People hide behind words,” Nic says. So Nic just waits and listens, “because those [initial words] aren’t the words. Those are the things that need to come out, almost like the words need to finish before that which is meant to come out would be said.” Nic’s Inner View Method has give... posted on Apr 11 2023 (3,077 reads)

knew I didn’t want children. In college, when a friend confessed a deep longing to become a mother, I couldn’t relate. I had ambitious career plans, and being a mother sounded limiting and ordinary. After college, I worked for a nonproft organisation in Washington, DC. My work felt exciting, important, and meaningful. Deep down, I knew there were many things I needed to do in my life, and I feared that having children would prevent me from fulfilling my potential. Bestselling author and psychologist James Hillman proposed what he called the “acorn theory” of psychological development. He contended that we each enter the world carrying something unique t... posted on Apr 20 2021 (8,005 reads)

gentlest thing in the world is an open mind. Since it doesn't believe what it thinks, it is flexible, porous, without opposition, without defense. Nothing has power over it. Nothing can resist it. Even the hardest thing in the world — a closed mind — can't resist the power of openness. Ultimately the truth flows into it and through it, like water through rock. "When the mind first becomes a student of itself, it learns that nothing in the world can possibly oppose it: everything is for it, everything adds to it, enlightens it, nourishes it, reveals it. It continues to open, because it's in a fearless, undefended state, and it's hungry for knowledge. An... posted on Apr 16 2019 (7,960 reads)

Marilyn Lacey, third from left, raises her hands with South Sudanese refugee women in celebration of the micro-loans provided by Mercy Beyond Borders. They had just draped Sister Marilyn in blue and put a bracelet on her wrist when they spontaneously grabbed her arms and began singing. (Courtesy of Mercy Beyond Borders/Alison Wright) Feb 24, 2020 Every Eucharist includes time for an offering of gifts. Here in the U.S., that's almost always the moment to contribute money. I've experienced other cultures where it can include contributing fresh produce from one's farm or home-baked goods to share. In South Sudan, instead of the collection basket being passed a... posted on Apr 4 2020 (7,301 reads)

I heard about Anne Firth Murray through a close friend, I was immediately intrigued. She’s a professor at Stanford University who teaches courses on international women’s health as well as a course entitled “Love as a Force for Social Justice,” the Founding President of the philanthropic organization, the Global Fund for Women, and a warm individual known for her tea gatherings and unusually exotic pets at her home in Palo Alto. I’ve been interested in women’s empowerment issues for quite some time, but to learn about someone who brings love into the field really piqued my interest.       Through this interview, I wanted to l... posted on Apr 4 2018 (12,848 reads)

in Common Ground All of us want, or need, to be loved. The need for love is one of the most basic human impulses. We may cover this need with patterns of self-protection or images of self-reliance. Or we may openly acknowledge this need to ourself or to others. But it is always present, whether hidden or visible. Usually, we seek for love in human relationships, project our need onto parents, partners, friends, lovers. Our lack or denial of love often causes wounds that we carry with us. This unmet need haunts us, sometimes driving us into addictions or other self-destructive patterns. Conversely, if our need for love is met, we feel nourished in the depths of our being. Love... posted on Dec 30 2021 (6,027 reads)

following speech was delivered on May 19, 2014 as part of the University of Pennsylvania's commencement ceremonies. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning. And congratulations! Now I'll try to be brief this morning. As a musician, this is about 10 hours before I normally go to work, so I'm gonna need a nap soon. And you've got degrees to receive. And I also have a feeling some of you are already tired of me. The thing about pop radio in America, somehow they've scientifically determined that the public is only capable of liking the same 10 songs at any given time, so they simply play those songs over and over and over until you're fina... posted on Jun 29 2014 (29,698 reads)

is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love,” the humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm wrote in his classic on the art of loving. In some sense, no love ever fails, for no experience is ever wasted — even the most harrowing becomes compost for our growth, fodder for our combinatorial creativity. But in another, it is indeed astonishing how often we get love wrong — how, over and over, it stokes our hopes and breaks our hearts and hurls us onto the cold hard baseboards of our being, flattened by defeat and despair, and how, over and over,... posted on Jul 14 2023 (2,375 reads)

Kitchen founders Helen Ashe (left), Director, and twin sister Ellen Turner, Manager, are delighted to still be serving up food and love at the Love Kitchen after 25 years. It’s a little past 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and 82-year-old twin sisters Helen Ashe and Ellen Turner are in the kitchen cracking eggs into wide-mouth wooden bowls. Brewing coffee infuses the air with an earthy aroma. Ellen gets a handheld electric mixer, plugs it in, and dips its shiny beaters into the yellow egg yolks in the bowl. A soft whirring sound signals the start of scrambled eggs. Helen meanwhile turns her attention from the eggs to white rounds of biscuit dough she begins to lay out on ... posted on Sep 5 2015 (12,000 reads)

Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today my guest is Jim Hunter. Jim is the author of two internationally bestselling books: The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership, and The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader.Jim’s books are used in many MBA and other higher education courses, have been translated into two dozen languages, and have sold well over 4 million copies worldwide. With Sounds True, Jim has created an audio program called The Servant Leadership Training Course: Achieving Success Through Character, Bravery, and Influence, where he gives listeners the keys to leading with integrity... posted on Aug 7 2014 (29,605 reads)

is in the air! When we hear that phrase, we might picture, perhaps, a young giddy couple freshly struck by Cupid's arrow or maybe an older couple holding hands as they stroll quietly along a boardwalk awash in a sunset glow. Perhaps the phrase conjures images of roses, chocolates, and candlelit dinners. But love is so much broader an emotion and action than romance. In this Daily Good Spotlight on Love, we look back through Daily Good features and revisit some of love's many-splendored dimensions and expressions. Love is in the air, alright. Everywhere we look. Love for Students Loving teachers transform classrooms....and students. No one falls... posted on Feb 14 2017 (16,115 reads)

Oscar Wilde has to do with Hippocrates and the neurochemistry of romance. It’s often said that every song, every poem, every novel, every painting ever created is in some way “about” love. What this really means is that love is a central theme, an underlying preoccupation, in humanity’s greatest works. But what exactly is love? How does its mechanism spur such poeticism, and how does it lodge itself in our minds, hearts and souls so completely, so stubbornly, as to permeate every aspect of the human imagination? Today, we turn to 5 essential books that are “about” love in a different way — they turn an inquisitive lens towards this grand ... posted on Jan 24 2012 (14,493 reads)

holds the essential vision that we are one living, interconnected ecosystem—a living Earth that supports and nourishes all of its inhabitants. If we acknowledge and honor this simple reality, we can begin to participate in the vital work of healing our fractured and divisive world and embrace a consciousness of oneness that is our human heritage. This is the opportunity that is being offered to us, even as its dark twin is constellating the dynamics of nationalism, tribalism, isolationism, and all the other regressive forces that express ‘me’ rather than ‘we.’ Oneness is not a metaphysical idea but something essential and ordinary. It is in every breath... posted on Nov 7 2018 (8,688 reads)

Being Studios · John Lewis — Love In Action What follows is the transcript of an On Being interview, between Krista Tippett and John Lewis. Tippett:I’m Krista Tippett. This is On Being. [music: “Precious Lord/Oh Freedom” by Betty Mae Fikes and the Congressional Delegation] Tippett:I spoke with congressman John Lewis in Montgomery, Alabama in 2013. Tippett:I’d like to start by talking about faith, which is a bedrock of your life. It’s one of the bedrocks that you name prominently in your most recent book. And I’d like to just hear a little bit about how you would describe the foundation of faith, the spiritual bac... posted on Feb 1 2021 (5,946 reads)

love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love,” the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn admonished in his terrific treatise on how to love — a sentiment profoundly discomfiting in the context of our cultural mythology, which continually casts love as something that happens to us passively and by chance, something we fall into, something that strikes us arrow-like, rather than a skill attained through the same deliberate practice as any other pursuit of human excellence. Our failure to recognize this skillfulness aspect is perhaps the primary reason why love is so intertwined with frustration. That’s what the great German social psychologist, psychoan... posted on Jan 12 2016 (18,382 reads)

(“Pancho”) Ramos-Stierle was pursuing his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of California at Berkeley when he learned that the University’s Los Alamos and Livermore Laboratories had contracted with the federal government to develop the next generation of nuclear weapons. The news transformed his life: he “stopped cooperating” with the institution and became a more involved activist. As a result of that decision, he has at times been houseless, living with friends, or in what he calls “the Redwood Cathedral.” For the past three years he has lived in the East Oakland neighborhood known as Fruitvale—a gang-torn and graffiti-tagged ... posted on Aug 23 2016 (17,303 reads)

Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65060962 Watching the sun rise over the wetlands, the mist fading, even here in the midst of nature there is the strange stillness of a world in lockdown — waiting, wondering, anxiety, and fear its companions. I am writing these words in the time of the great pandemic, when for a few brief months our world slowed down and almost stopped; when as the stillness grew around us there was a moment to hear another song, not one of cars and commerce, but belonging to the seed of a future our hearts need to hear. This song comes from a place where the angels are present, where light is born, where the fu... posted on Sep 20 2020 (6,892 reads)

following is a transcript of an interview between Krista Tippett and Maira Kalman syndicated from On Being. Krista Tippett, host:“The subject of my work,” Maira Kalman says, is “the normal, daily things that people fall in love with.” She is a visual storyteller, and to be in conversation with her is a little like wandering into one of the cartoons you might see in The New Yorker and which she might have drawn. Millions of us have been prompted to smile and think by Maira Kalman’s work in a museum or the recent illustrated revision of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style or a New York Times blog or her lovel... posted on Feb 14 2019 (6,421 reads)

is how we mature… There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak.” “Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf asserted in the only surviving recording of her voice. But words also belong to us, as much as we belong to them - and out of that mutual belonging arises our most fundamental understanding of the world, as well as the inescapable misunderstandings that bedevil the grand sensemaking experiment we call life. This constant dialogue between reality and illusion, moderated by our use of language, is what poet and philosopher David Whyte explores in Consolations: The Solace, Nourish... posted on May 12 2015 (30,156 reads)

follows is the transcript of an interview between Tami Simon and Lynne Twist syndicate from SoundsTrue. You can listen to the audio recording of the interview here. Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name’s Tami Simon, I’m the founder of Sounds True. I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness and self-compassion, regardless of financial, social or phys... posted on Mar 12 2022 (2,952 reads)